


The Yellow Dress

by Ione



Category: Master and Commander - Patrick O'Brian
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-18
Updated: 2010-12-18
Packaged: 2017-10-13 18:13:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/140223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ione/pseuds/Ione
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Diana is determined to fix Sophie's life . . . including her hatred of sex. Set in the time of The Yellow Admiral</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Yellow Dress

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Pitseleh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pitseleh/gifts).



“Damn the woman.” Diana Maturin pulled up on the reins. “I _knew_ it would be a mistake to bring her to Woolcombe.”

Even over the jingling of harnesses, the creak of Cholmondeley’s borrowed carriage, and the clopping and snorting of Diana’s bays, the strident sound of Mrs. Williams’ voice reached the two women seated on the carriage’s high perch.

“ . . . taken in adultery! You will have to petition Parliament, Sophie, and you will never be able to hold up your head again. _Crim-in-al conversation!_ I _told_ you that man was no real captain. A _true_ captain of His Majesty’s navy would _never_ —but no, missy, you know better than the mother who bore you, and you _would_ run off like that hoyden cousin of yours . . .”

“That’s to your credit?” Clarissa Oakes asked as one seeking information. There was no penetration in her tone, no hidden smile, and certainly no pretended shock.

Diana Maturin cursed, then smiled as Harding emerged from the stable, sending the Woolcombe grooms to the horses’ heads.

“We are not returned; I have an errand out at Barham, Harding,” Diana said as Clarissa climbed nimbly down. “Just walk them, if you please.”

Clarissa straightened her bonnet. “Running from the enemy?” Clarissa asked.

“I think of it as a strategic retreat,” Diana retorted. “I have always misliked her temper. And I do have to fetch some things for our comfort; that east wing is vastly uncomfortable. But first, let’s see if we can smother the storm, shall we, for Sophie’s sake? _En avant_.”

 “ _En garde_ ,” Clarissa replied in an undervoice as they held their skirts high and tripped across the stable yard to the garden path.

They were watched by the stable hands, who admired the two slim figures in their silks and flounces, one dark, the other fair; high-bred ‘uns, same as the bays, they were saying, until Harding (once he’d had his own look) cuffed every head in reach, sending them about their business.

Diana’s chin came up as she peered into the familiar garden walk between stable and house. “Ah!” she exclaimed. “Charlotte?”

A flicker among the sun-dappled trees stilled, then with a flash of skirts a coltish girl appeared, her round gown muddy to the knees, her fair hair tumbling out of its ribbons.

“Cousin Diana!” she called, and sketched a curtsey to Clarissa. “Good morning, Mrs. Oakes.”

“Charlotte, where is your brother?”

Charlotte, having demonstrated that she could assume perfect manners, for reasons of her own jerked her thumb back at the stable, whose mossy roof rose above the ornamental trees laid out in Georgian lines by a grandmother she had never met. “Takin’ a caulk,” Charlotte said in the accents of Wapping.

Diana and Clarissa took no notice of the faint air of challenge. Diana said, “Fetch him, will you, Charlotte? You and Fanny get him properly turned out, and bring him to the blue parlor.”

Charlotte looked mutinous, but then she tipped her head consideringly. “ _That_ ’ll stop her gob, won’t it?”

Diana said conspiratorially, “Decidedly. I think your poor mother wants a moment of peace, do not you? There will be a shilling in it for each of you if you contrive to do what I ask.”

Charlotte’s expression of mutiny was banished by a broad smile that brought her father to mind. It was a singularly charming smile, the more for being artless, strengthening the deep blue of the girl’s eyes. Her twin appeared a moment later, not quite as forward; as Fanny sketched curtseys to the visitors, Charlotte explained the plan to her in blunt, efficient words.

It was Fanny, usually the more timid, who asked, “What, pray, is ‘criminal conversation’?”

The high voice, the proper drawing room enunciation, caused Diana to hide a smile as Charlotte said, looking mutinous again, “Bugger! I tried to ask, and my grandmother made me write out my collect—”

“Better that than Ephesians 6:1 a hundred times over,” Fanny muttered. “Which _you_ netted me yesterday.”

“—all the time giving me a bear-garden jaw about pert girls, and how no one will marry me, and in her day, girls never presumed, and how association with raffish sailors would ruin us.”

Fanny said, “Do tell us, Cousin Diana. We do not dare to ask Mama, for she has been weeping ever since you left after breakfast. We would ask Killick or Bonden, but they ain’t here.”

Diana took a moment to deeply appreciate the image of Killick instructing the girls on such a topic before she said, “Some questions are best put to women. But not Aunt Williams.”

The twins flashed their father’s smile again as Diana said, “It has to do with marital relations. Specifically when a gentleman, or a lady . . .” She paused, eyeing the girls, who were at that impossible age: not quite children, but not yet young ladies. What was the normative here? Diana’s upbringing had never been normal.

“Courts,” Clarissa murmured helpfully.

Diana threw her a grateful glance. “Courts another gentleman, or lady, outside of their marriage.”

“Oh-h-h-h,” Charlotte said knowingly. “I know.”

“Know what?” Fanny demanded, thoroughly exasperated.

“ _That_.” Charlotte grabbed her sister’s arm. “D’you twig? Come on, we’ll have to brush down George. He’ll be all over straw.”

Fanny permitted herself to be dragged off, but over her shoulder, she asked, “Pray, Cousin Diana, can a gentleman court a gentleman, or a lady court a lady?”

“Of course they can,” Diana said. “But it’s usually given another name.”

The girls vanished in a twinkling, their high voices carrying from beyond the shrubbery. “Why all these names for one thing?” Fanny asked.

“It’s like parlor manners and deck manners, ninny,” Charlotte said impatiently. “It just _is_.”

Diana and Clarissa continued up the pathway, Clarissa observing, “Those children are going to want explanations before long.”

Diana gave a definitive nod. “I mean to see that they don’t get it from Aunt Williams, if I can. Damn it all, I feared we might come to such a pass with that woman here, but I did not think so soon. She’s always hated Jack, unless he comes home with bags of treasure. I wonder if another sheaf of lawsuits has turned up?”

“Another sheaf of lawsuits about criminal conversation?”

“No. You’re right. _Scelerat!_ Nothing for it. You have noticed how she treats us as visitors, on the pretext that we pay rent? I mean to turn that to good account right now.”

“That’s a very good notion about the boy,” Clarissa said, having already in part divined Diana’s intent.

Diana laughed. “I took it from a novel that came my way recently. In it the lady (you know a lady must have written it, for the women are interesting, and the men are fools) maintains that there is nothing like introducing a child into a drawing room, where there is sure to be a poverty of conversation.”

“ _All_ men are fools,” was Clarissa’s observation. “I should like you to point out that book.”

“It sits at Barham. We shall fetch it today.”

The strident voice had ceased. That meant word had reached the house, as Diana had intended. She and Clarissa took their time proceeding up the walk, pausing to admire the roses; with real sorrow Diana spied small signs of neglect—roses past their bloom, insect-eaten leaves, tiny weed shoots—making it plain that in the two days since their arrival, Mrs. Williams had been in possession not just of the household but also Sophie’s time. For Sophie, if left alone, loved tending her garden.

Diana was no housekeeper. No one expected her to be. She had told herself it was best for everyone if she were to get herself out of the way each day in order to exercise the bays, and as Sophie was absurdly treating Clarissa like a caller, instead of sensibly putting her to work, perforce Diana had her company.

In the time it took to walk from the garden to the house, Diana had to admit that her ruse looked less like a compromise to suit everyone, and more like a cowardly retreat, leaving Sophie in the hands of the enemy. And in the time it took to be greeted and ushered into the blue parlor, Diana had settled it within herself to do something about this situation.

The blue parlor was spotless, of course; it smelled of damp wood from scrubbing, as Mrs. Williams loved cleanliness as much as she hated actually using the furnishings. As had become her habit, she'd assumed the duties of hostess to herself, and ushered them determinedly into the blue parlor, on the pretext (though it was probably quite true) that the sitting rooms had all been turned out.

As they sat down, Mrs. Williams launched into a long description of the work they had begun, interspersing a great many comments about how much a sacrifice she was making in order to see that the house, which (she said) had wallowed along in an extremity of filth before her arrival, was cleaned properly.

 Diana agreed with everything without listening to a word: she observed instead. All the signs were there was this was no mere domestic disagreement, such as happened all too frequently when Mrs. Williams was about. It was the shame of the world, as Stephen would say, that that fool Mrs. Morris would run off with that Briggs (who Diana had instantly distrusted the first time she laid eyes on him). Everyone had thought Mrs. Williams would look about her at the rambling house, the extensive ménage, and make her stay short, but it was increasingly evident after just two days that she’d looked about her, all right, just to settle the more firmly in for a protracted stay.

Sophie, being the gentlest creature in nature (and a great goose) had given way to her mother, as she always did. So what could Jack have possibly done from his no-doubt great distance to occasion the angry jerks of Aunt Williams’ wattles as she spoke, the self-righteous twitches of her shoulders, and Sophie’s extreme unhappiness?

 “ . . . at least Mrs. Morris _married_ Briggs,” Mrs. Williams finished with a fulminating look at Sophie, sitting wanly on the second most uncomfortable piece of furniture in the room.

 _And how did we arrive here?_ Diana thought. She had better listen.

“ . . . and at least she was a widow. Unlike some I could name. But we will not sully this room, with the Great Book right here in our presence,” (a prim nod at the Aubrey family Bible on the mantel) “touching on such a topic. The important thing is that evil does not long stay hidden. Here was Sophie with this great barrack of a house, and not one servant fit to work, and so, at great cost to myself, not that I ever think of the pain it gives me, I put myself to the task of turning out that room, though it might have broken the back of a much younger woman.”

She had made a great many remarks, entirely exculpatory in nature, about this room before Diana (who paid scant attention to domestic details in her own house, much less anyone else’s) remembered that Mrs. Williams had been put in Jack’s room. A sense of foreboding replaced Diana’s impatience as the serving girl brought in the tea things and a great, heavy cake of the sort that Mrs. Williams loved to serve. Two bites and one was quite full.

As Clarissa forced down the requisite two bites for the sake of politeness, she provided the chorus to Diana’s eclogues with smiles, nods, and a host of “Very true,” and “Indeed so, ma’am” while sinking inward to reflect on eclogues—how the pastoral turned to parody—Mary Wortley Montague’s _Town Eclogues_ —what was Diana thinking as she frowned so ferociously at the cold fireplace?

Then it was Clarissa’s turn for penetrating questions under the guise of politeness (“You say your husband was a captain, Mrs. Oakes?”) which she turned off with ease, as she had for the past two days. Clarissa was sorry to see Sophie Aubrey sitting there so disconsolately, wearing an ugly yellow dress whose lace was in want of change. Sophie had not been friendly, but Clarissa understood why, even if she shared none of those sentiments exhibited by the ordinary run of women. She pitied them more than not.

Sophie scarcely said two words, though it became more evident that her mother badly wanted to get back to that room, in spite of the Bible up there on the mantel.

“More cake, Mrs. Oakes?” Mrs. Williams said, and on Clarissa’s thanks, leaned forward. “If anyone knows what is appropriate to a gentlewoman’s drawing room and what is not, it is I, but I quite count you as one of the family,  Mrs. Oakes, and so I fear it is my duty to return to the sad subject of my discovery—”

Diana exclaimed, “I beg your pardon, Aunt Williams, but this cake is so delicious! What is the receipt? I would like to introduce it into my own drawing room, when Dr. Maturin and I move back to Half Moon Street.”

Mrs. Williams preened. “The secret is the lard,” she said. “And honey, instead of sugar. You gain a great saving in eggs that way, I can tell you. What is the use of a dozen of eggs in one cake, which goes to waste half-eaten on the plates, when you can as easily . . .”

The cake took up a good six minutes, punctuated by a speakingly grateful look from Sophie, but Mrs. Williams was made of stern stuff, and she was determined to carry her point. “So to resume our sad history, as you know, I consider no sacrifice too great for my children. I never spare myself when I can be of use. I couldn’t help but notice the dust on top of Captain Aubrey’s cupboard, and so I bethought me, I would spare my daughter the fatigue and the shame, should anyone discover it, and took it upon myself to turn out the cupboards for a proper cleaning. And what falls out but letters tied up in a ribbon, letters in a female hand, sent from Canada—”

Diana held her impatience in tight rein as tears escaped from under Sophie’s lowered eyelids, but _at last_ the girls appeared, with their brother in tow, freshly scrubbed and rigged out in his round jacket, his shoes polished.

The girls had also changed, which explained their lengthy absence. They made perfect curtseys, and in proper drawing room lisps greeted everyone as they sat primly side by side on the wooden settee. George made a leg, then descended on the turgid cake with the happily undiscerning appetite of a young boy. With his mouth full, he needn’t speak as the Diana chattered dementedly about how tall he was, how handsome, and how accomplished his bow, until even Sophie gave her a mute, wondering look.

Too soon Mrs. Williams gave the girls an unmistakable twitch of the head, and they, wary of her tongue, whisked themselves and their brother out, no doubt to listen outside the door once it was shut.

Mrs. Williams promptly reverted to her topic, but she’d scarcely got to the bound letters again when Diana, having had recourse to the pocket watch hidden inside her reticule, exclaimed, “Oh dear, what is the time? Aunt Williams, I don’t dare to leave the horses walking long. Oh, the clock seems to be stopped! Shall I wind it?”

This was a master stroke; the handsome clock was, of course, silent, for Mrs. Williams could not bear the idea of the works being worn, and so all it took was Diana’s helpful offer to set it going again for Mrs. Williams to welcome with evident thankfulness Diana’s suggestion that she and Mrs. Oakes drive over to Barham to scout out some more linens.

The groomsmen had been walking the horses; the bays were soon hitched up again, and Diana touched the whip to the leader, driving them out in style.

As soon as they were safe from Woolcombe’s ears, Clarissa observed, “You seem quite determined.”

“Would you not determine to do something, now that monstrous woman has dug herself in?” Diana cocked an eyebrow. Not waiting for an answer to this entirely rhetorical question (for she knew that Clarissa, if vexed enough, was more likely to take a pistol in hand and shoot whoever had vexed her), she went on. “I see what it is. She was nosing about Jack’s chamber, and found letters from that fool Amanda Smith that Jack, being a bigger fool, kept by him. Why? He didn’t want her, anyone could see that in Halifax. She caught him in her toils and he, being a great gaby, couldn’t shake loose until he set sail.”

“Some mistaken gallantry, I would guess,” Clarissa said. “He can’t quite bear to burn them.”

“ _How_ like Jack, damn it all!” Diana paused as a horn blew on the road ahead; the rising dust heralded another equipage on its approach.

Diana handled the reins with her usual precision, guiding her team precisely between the hedgerow and the lumbering mail coach; the students riding on top raised their hats and hallooed at the sight of two handsome women dashing along in style.

Diana, in great good humor, saluted them with the whip, turning it expertly so that the lash curled about the stock, then said, “Where was I? Oh yes. Briggs! I spotted him for a Captain Sharp the first time I laid eyes on him. But it never pays to say anything to Aunt Williams, so I kept it to myself.”

“If the man is married to that Mrs. Morris, surely it is too late to do anything?”

“Possibly. I cannot pursue anything myself, of course, but I do know who can.” She sent Clarissa another long glance; they understood one another quite well, so well that neither had to speak about Diana’s Stephen, and his somewhat odd, and certainly secretive, occasions. Which included some odd and secretive persons who, for a price, could be of prodigious use.

“That’s decided me,” Diana stated. “I’ve been trying to be pleased that I handed that damned bauble of mine to Cholmondeley, on the grounds that it’s quite absurd to wear something like the Blue Peter among the dowdy company here, and how good it is to be swimming in riches, and I know Sophie needs the rent I am paying her. But now I find I can be glad without reserve, because it enables us to get away entirely for a couple of days. We shall leave Padeen and Brigid at Barham, for I do not trust what Aunt Williams might do to either of them, and you and I will drive down to London so that I may buy a new hat, pay a call or two, and we shall stay with Mrs. Broad.”

“I should like that very much,” Clarissa said. “I wish to see how Sarah and Emily are getting on.”

* * *

Sophie Aubrey watched Diana leave. It was a measure of her misery that she was even sorry to see the back of that Mrs. Oakes.

She closed the front door, and leaned her forehead against the paint as tears dripped down her face. From the blue parlor she could hear her mother’s voice scolding the twins.  Cushions . . . settee . . . wear . . . the room had to be scoured out yet again, then the door firmly shut unless more callers arrived.

The door banged open, and Mrs. Williams’ scolding voice carried above the clatter of footsteps. “ . . . and use both hands under the tray, Fanny. Put the cake in the larder. We’ll have it at supper. I abhor waste, and with three young appetites, and not knowing when we will ever see any money from _Captain_ Aubrey again . . .”

Mrs. Williams’ voice diminished in the direction of the west wing, where she was undoubtedly going to check on the workmen yet again, and count the nails lest someone steal any, and hound the workers to get about their labors faster, yet more thoroughly.

From the other direction came the girls’ voices in their private patios, a mixture of proper language and the accents of the lower deck.

“I’d as lief pull another watch as parlor-boarders at Aunt Frankie’s again. Liefer.”

“Oh, Char. And leave Mama?”

“Bear a hand, mate! Bear a hand! If you smash that plate _she_ will pitch into us both.”

“What can we do? Oh, if only Killick were here. He’d know how to serve her out, he would.”

“No he wouldn’t, but at least we wouldn’t be forever scrubbing the paint off everything, and if I have to turn that damned calico gown one more time . . .”

“I _still_ don’t understand criminal conversation, and what it has to do with _that_. What exactly did Papa do?”

Whatever her sister answered was lost. Sophie was grateful for that, at the least.

* * *

The days dragged by until the sudden reappearance of Diana, with that Mrs. Oakes in tow, in a new coach that was stuffed with provisions bought in London.

The children greeted little Brigid with shrieks of pleasure, including in the greeting tall, competent Padeen, as if they hadn’t seen them for three months instead of three days. More welcome to Sophie were the Barham servants, for her mother had turned off one of her own, and two others had given notice, which left Sophie with unending domestic labors that never seemed to end. 

One might think that Mama would be pleased to see the servants and the provisions, but she scolded that much more in private; somehow, in her mind, the addition of all that food in the larder yet new (shiftless) mouths to feed somehow was going to cost Sophie more than the rent Diana paid, and reduce them all to bread and butter.

Thence began a hideous stretch of days during which Diana, backed by Clarissa, poured advice into Sophie’s ears that her mother spied upon in order to counter later, back and forth, until Sophie felt her wits were being stretched between the two, and any time they might snap.

“Mark my words,” her mother said just before dinner one night, that day Diana having driven off and returned in triumph with more provisions. It just angered Mother Williams the more, as if Diana had done it in spite. She cornered Sophie as they waited for the others to come down, waving her forefinger. “Mark my words. Diana was ever a no-good piece, and all that sugar will just collect flies, in spite of her coming it as high as Pompous Pilate.”

“Pontius Pilate, Aunt Williams,” Diana said, walking into the sitting room, Mrs. Oakes behind her. Diana’s eyes were wide, their blue made brighter by the celestial blue silk she wore so smartly; she no longer had the Blue Peter, her famous diamond, but nothing could have glittered as brightly as her smile. “I thought you were a Biblical scholar! His name is Pontius Pilate. Clarissa, what was that verse, ‘What is truth?’”

“John 18:38.”

Mrs. Williams flushed with anger. “Well! All I can say is, if there had been more Bible reading and less running off in sin, naming no names, then we all might not be brought to this pretty pass.”

“What pretty pass is that, Aunt Williams? Sophie, is that the roast lamb I smell? I thought it a very fine cut. Fanny! I quite like you in those ribbons. I shall have to look out more of the same. That shade of rose is your color . . .”

Thus routed, Mrs. Williams saved up her venom for Sophie as soon as the others had retreated for the night, causing Sophie to retire early with a very real headache.

Sophie came down early the next morning, hoping to find the house quiet so that she might get through her work in blessed silence. But as soon as she’d eaten some cold lamb and a piece of toast, down came Diana, Clarissa, Padeen, and Brigid with a bang and a clatter.

“No, no breakfast. I’ve already spoken to Harding; the horses should be waiting. We shall stop in the village,” Diana said to Sophie’s protestations, her eyes bright. “We are taking advantage of this beautiful weather to see Lyme, and I wish to try out this new carriage.”

They were gone in a whirl; when Sophie crept upstairs to the morning room, she discovered her mother there, already going through the household accounts with the air of a Christian martyr facing a den of lions, and Sophie’s head began to ache again, though the sun had scarcely cleared the horizon.

And so it was that Jack himself walked into the yard, all alone. The first notice that Sophie had of his appearance was Charlotte calling from the kitchen doorway, “It’s Papa,” followed by George’s shrieking as he ran down the stairs, “Papa! Papa!”

Sophie listened to the low rumble of his voice as he greeted the children, and then came his step on the stair, her own beloved Jack, and here he was, with his dear face above his faded coat, the cruel scars pale in his deeply tanned face, his long hair already tousled by his early morning ride.

Mrs. Williams sniffed, rustling the ribbon tied papers that were never far from her hand, then got up muttering some words about her cap as she shot a glare of reproach back at Sophie. She was going off to rehearse her words, and words there would be, leading to one of those towering arguments that made Sophie feel quite sick. And why? Because Jack had seen fit to lay aside his marriage vows.

Sophie’s anger reached the boil at last; she flew out at him, and sent him to the right-about.

After that she locked herself in her room and wept her heart out.

The next morning, she kept the door locked. Her mother scratched, coaxed, scolded, and threatened, but Sophie remained in bed, unmoving, wishing God would strike her dead. Surely hell could be no worse than this existence.

A short time later, the latch clicked, and the door swung open. Sophie sat up, blinking in the gloom, as Diana entered, bearing a carving knife. “I learned that in India,” she said in a conversational tone. “You cannot conceive how often I needed just such aids. Now. You are to rise and get dressed and come downstairs.”

“Diana, he called me a hard, ill-natured unforgiving shrew.”

“Sophie—”

“A hard, unforgiving, ill-natured and pitiless shrew.”

“Sophie.”

“No, I mistake. It was a hard, ill-natured—”

“Sophie! Hear me!”

“Diana, he said _be damned to you_. To _me_. Such language, to his wife—”

“Sophie, I won’t say you drove him to it, but you are damn near driving me to it,” Diana exclaimed and when Sophie sat up, gasping in anger, she said approvingly, “That’s better. Now, I promise you will enjoy this.  But my surprise will be spoilt if my messenger arrives before you get there, and oh yes, Aunt Williams is not to know that I am aware of any such messenger.”

She whisked herself out, laughing. Sophie was angry and curious by turns; she rose, washed her face and hands, put up her hair, and went downstairs.

When she entered the breakfast parlor, her mother looked up, her eyes sharp with anxiety and accusation mixed. “Sophie, are you ill? Shall I send for the—” She paused as a clatter arose at the kitchen door.

One of the stable boys burst in, saying, “It’s an express! All the way from London!”

Mrs. Williams rose. “Sophie, you remain seated. You are not well; I will see to whatever it may be—”

Harding himself was at the door, knuckling his forehead. “Ma’am, he says it is for you.”

“Me!” Mrs. Williams looked nonplussed, then pleased to be so singled out. Then she said suspiciously, “If you think I will pay for the privilege of receiving something I did not ask for—”

“Paid for, ma’am,” said the boy.

“Well!” Mrs. Williams’ shoulders twitched and she swelled with importance, aware of everyone’s eyes on her. The receipt of a letter caught her by surprise; she had been ready to assert her rights in reading any express for Sophie, lest it turn out to be some begging letter from That Man. Who would write to _her?_

She broke the seal and unfolded the heavy paper. “Bless me! Why, for shame! Oh, who could have known! We nourished a viper in our . . .”

Such exclamations drove the children wild with curiosity; Diana calmly rescued the toast rack from the fire before the bread turned black, and passed it around. She was spooning jam thickly onto the bread when Mrs. Williams lowered the close-written letter, crossed and recrossed, and said, “I do not know if I am on my head or my heels!”

“What is it, Mama, pray?” Sophie exclaimed; she dared not look at Diana.

“Briggs!” Mrs. Williams’ chins jiggled with righteousness. “That odious serpent Briggs! We nourished a viper—well! It turns out that he has been named in suits for bigamy! And not just that, but for impersonation, and theft, and forgery, and all manner of evil things. Mrs. Morris has been left flat, and begs me to return to Bath at once. It seems that the magistrates might call me as a witness for the prosecution!” She started toward the door. “I must pack at once; no effort shall be spared on my part, until I see that man hanged!”

“Come girls, we shall all help.” Diana clapped her hands. “Why, there is not a moment to be lost!”

* * *

As soon as the coach bore Mrs. Williams and her trunks off, Diana looked for immediate improvement in her cousin.  Her impatience grew as Sophie remained pensive, even glum.

She had gone to a great deal of trouble, not to mention expense (for it was she who arranged for Mrs. Morris’s new house in Bath, and in an excellent situation, yet) for that old harridan whom she owed nothing, to what purpose? Sophie had not sprung back to her customary bloom.

“I despise gratitude,” Diana said to Clarissa in private that next Saturday afternoon, as they tooled about the countryside, the children’s voices sounding like gulls as they laughed within the carriage. “Yet one might think that Sophie would at least smile.”

Clarissa said, “Regret.”

Diana cast her a slanting look. “Regret? With that horrid woman gone?”

“’The ill-natured shrew.’ Also, I collect, there was a letter.”

Diana dropped her hands, and the horses sprang into a gallop. “ _Why_ is it there is always a letter?”

Clarissa could not answer that; though reading was the greatest solace of her life, she would no more commit her thoughts to paper than she would trepan her own skull and lay out her brains for others to pick over. But she also could not imagine bestirring herself for one moment over what a man might think, as long as there was no outright danger, so she just shrugged, pulled her shawl tighter about her as the wind was coming up, and sat back to enjoy the speed.

Though Clarissa could not partake of Sophie’s sensibilities, she was correct about their cause. Sophie resumed the rhythms of her life before her mother’s arrival, grateful and sorrowful by turns. Guilt gripped her at the intensity of her relief, and she had to remind herself that her mother meant well, she cared about her family in her way, and she was undoubtedly much happier in Bath.

With her mother gone, the servants who’d been turned off or given notice had returned, two sheepish, and one brazen; hers and Diana’s servants talked amicably, and Sophie was forced to consider how the tone of the house had changed so drastically, and was this what Jack meant when he talked about the tone of the ship?

Jack.

There was no escaping the truth: Jack had been thoroughly in the wrong, yet there was no recompense demanded of men. They could stray as they liked, and everyone winked and smiled. A woman who did everything right was the one who paid for the man’s infidelity.

This fretful angry sorrow that shadowed her days was as pervasive as the anxiousness when one of the children was sick: the sun did not shine as brightly, the freshest summer breeze brought a chill of winter.

Later that Saturday, when Diana’s coach clattered into the courtyard again, Sophie welcomed the noise. The children ran in, trying to outshout one another as they told her what they’d seen, how many bang-up turnouts Diana had passed, and that they were famished, George piping shrilly, “I’m fair gut-foundered.”

Diana laughed, and cast off her gloves, saying, “Padeen, will you see to it they get dressed for dinner?”

The tall, silent man took Brigid’s little fingers gently in his, and snapped his fingers at the rest, causing all three to heel like well-trained sheep hounds. As their noise died away in the upper reaches of the rambling house, Sophie went to change her gown, thinking that Padeen made a better governess than most, and again she found herself grateful that her mother was gone. Mrs. Williams had been so cruel to dear Padeen.

Diana watched as supper proceeded; her attention was scarcely on the children, whom Padeen had well in hand. She did notice that Brigid’s table manners were coming along excellently, and really, the child was going to be a beauty. Her little face was wholly absorbed in the handling of knife and fork as she cut a bite of the shepherd’s pie, Padeen guiding only with the touch of a finger.

The twins were in fine fettle, tapping on their water glasses the patterns of bosuns’ tweets until Sophie bade them stop, her voice fretful, with an edge that brought Aunt Williams to mind. Diana knew that angry, put-upon tone from days of old, the tone of a woman whose life is dedicated to forcing everyone around her to acknowledge her moral superiority. That must cease.

It was time to take Sophie in hand.

After dinner, Diana summarily dismissed the children. “Go outside and chase fireflies,” she said. “It smells like rain tomorrow, so even if it wasn’t the Sabbath, you would be confined indoors after divine service. Enjoy the fine evening while you can.”

When the three women settled into the east room, two with work and Diana with a pack of cards as she played piquet against herself. She worked through a game or so as she rehearsed her words, then said, “Sophie. Unless you wish to pine your life away, it is time to talk it over.”

Sophie looked up, flushing. It was evident what had been on her mind as well, for she took up the subject as if it had been under discussion for days, though it had never been breached between them. “What is there to discuss? The truth is inescapable: Jack betrayed his wedding vows. The evidence is there in those letters.” And when Diana’s shoulder came up, Sophie said pettishly, “I realize that wedding vows might mean little to you. With your world of experience. But I was taught that what I swore before God was sacred.”

Diana dropped her cards and put her chin on her fist. “Do you want him back?”

Sophie was startled. “What?”

“I believe I made myself clear. Do you want Jack Aubrey back? Or do you wish to carry your point to Parliament, and ruin him forever with a suit naming him, and that fool Amanda Smith, in criminal conversation?”

“I would, if it wouldn’t ruin my name forever,” Sophie said angrily, throwing up her head.  “Let him go to that woman if he wants her.”

“But he doesn’t want her,” Diana stated calmly as she dealt out a new hand. “He was tricked into it. I was there. Amanda Smith was a fool, and Jack knew it, but she outfoxed him. He tumbled her when he was in drink, and was sorry ever after.”

Sophie threw aside her needlework, sitting bolt upright. “And telling me this is supposed to reconcile me?”

“Ta, ta.” Diana waved her cards like a fan to and fro. “Save that for Drury Lane. The fact is, men are like that, most of ‘em. They get caught up, they regret it, and creep about afterward like whipped dogs. That’s the good ones. Like Jack. We needn’t waste time on the real rakes.”

“Isn’t that the very definition of a rake?” Sophie asked. “He who throws over the sanctity of the marriage bed?”

Diana knew that she was hearing Aunt Williams. “’Sanctity,’” she repeated. “There is nothing sacred about the act. It can be fun. It _should_ be fun. Sacred?”

“Wedding vows, made in church, are sacred,” Sophie insisted. “What you do in the marriage bed is for the propagation of children. If you are arguing that there is no meaning in these or other sacred subjects, I do not wish to hear it.”

“I leave talk of the sacred to Stephen. No one knows it better, saving bishops and vicars. I condition only for what I know of human nature, that is relations between men and women, and the sacred frequently has little to do with it. People only prate of sacred vows when they think they have been wronged. You never hear of it otherwise.”

Clarissa murmured, “Ut ameris, amabilis esto.”

“Is that aimed at me, pray?” Sophie asked, flushing with anger.

Clarissa said pacifically, “It’s Ovid. From the _Ars Amatoria_. It means, when translated, _If you want to be loved, be lovable_.”

“I can see that these heathenish works have meaning for you,” Sophie began, pettish again, “but—”

“Then read the Psalms, in the Bible sitting there on the mantelpiece in the blue parlor,” Diana said. “In spite of that Methody humbug Aunt Williams prates, the Bible don’t forbid a woman from enjoying the marriage bed. And if she enjoys it, the good husbands—ones like Jack—always come home. No matter what might happen two thousand miles away. During those long cruises all Jack talks about is wanting to get home,” Diana stated.

Clarissa nodded. “It’s true. I’ve seen him cursing at the smallest wait for the mail packet. Then he does nothing but sit in that stuffy cabin and pore over every scrap.”

Sophie was silent for a time, struggling with the desire to believe them, opposed by a new resentment. Diana and Clarissa were intimately acquainted with the mysterious world of men and ships. Sophie herself had ventured out only once, when she ran away to marry Jack . . .

She put aside that tender memory. “But if his vows mean so much, then how comes it any woman, fool or otherwise, can put him in this position? He isn’t forced into their beds.”

“Men cannot help themselves,” Diana said. “They really are the weaker sex in more ways than you can count. You know it, Sophie. Jack thinks himself so fly to the time of day, but the truth is, he’s as easy to hoodwink as any moonling. Just think of Kimber.”

“It’s the same with the act of passion,” Clarissa said. “They can talk themselves into anything for a moment’s pleasure.”

“Stephen doesn’t,” Sophie stated.

“We will leave Stephen out of this.” Diana tossed her cards down. “Jack is like most husbands. They will tumble to a moment’s pleasure when two thousand miles and ten months from home, but all he thinks about when it is over is being home. But.” She raised a hand when Sophie began to remonstrate. “If, when he gets home, all he meets with is ranting and canting, and the smell of camphor and talk of sin and waste and endless blame, he begins to ask himself, is this why I put my life to risk every day at sea? Because he knows, they all know, that in a single beat of the heart, a cannon ball, the fall of a yard or a mast, and it’s all over. He could be in a battle right this moment.” Diana rapped her knuckles lightly on the tea table. “As we speak the guns are blazing, and fires bursting out everywhere, what has he to think of from his last day home? A tender night of passion, a kiss and a fond farewell, or  . . .”

Sophie’s hands had come to her lips. Her eyes gleamed with gathering liquid.

Clarissa said, “It is part of the vows, to make a good home, is it not? Is it not the wife’s duty, that what we may term matrimonial love-making should be so good that he remembers it fondly every day he is away, and he wants nothing more than to come home to it?”

Sophie’s skin prickled with heat. ‘Love-making’ had once meant the sweet, ardent words of courtship, the glances across a crowded room, the yearning gaze as one walked by in one’s very best dress, feeling one’s power. But Mrs. Oakes’ ‘matrimonial love-making’ now evoked the realities of matrimony: the sudden onslaught after all those months, followed by storming the deck, so to speak, from time to time after, as one did one’s best to hide it from the children, and to keep the household running; then the sickness and pain of pregnancy and childbirth. Where was the pleasure in that? “I thought it the part of a lady to lie there,” she murmured.

Diana snorted. “It’s only old women who tell you that—ones whose husbands spend their evenings at the pot house, or the stews, where they get better attention. Or they die, just to escape the nagging, as I am convinced happened to poor Uncle Williams.”

“Papa,” Sophie breathed.

Diana had her attention now! She leaned forward. “It’s a positive _duty_ to enjoy the act, because men truly are such simple creatures. A man does like some mark of appreciation for his efforts, you know, whether it’s getting a medal pinned on him for pointing his ship properly during battle, or from a lady whom he has well-pleased. How much better when that lady is his wife!”

Sophie’s gaze turned inward, and Diana wondered if she was thinking of Jack’s style of board-and-carry, all-guns-blazing, which hardly left time for the woman to catch her breath. He might have changed in the years since he’d risked his career sneaking into port to visit Diana; he might be improved. She dared not ask, she could not risk losing everything by intimating that Jack was not the best at everything.

An idea darted into her brain, and she began to describe the mark of the truly considerate lover. Sophie listened, her eyes wide, her cheeks wearing a becoming flush, though Diana suspected that anger was not far away.

“ . . . why do you think women stand in line to be noticed by Captain Apollo, whenever he gives a ball, or attends one? I don’t mean the schoolroom misses. They will try to catch the eye of anything wearing trousers, especially if the gentleman has a deep purse. I am talking about the married women.”

Sophie’s eyelids flashed up in shock.

“Come now, Sophie. You know what a _mari complaisant_ is. Or a cicisbeo, or a _cavalier servente_. All terms for the fellow who is considerate, who knows just how to please a lady, which lessons she, in turn, may carry home to instruct the man she loves in how to please her best. Why, it is a positive duty!”

After that, the ideas came faster and faster—nothing so horrid, so ruinous of one’s looks as self-righteousness—nothing so wholly unamiable as the habitual, put-upon expression of discontent—nothing so ill-advised as continual reproach if one wished for a happy home.

When the moment was right, Diana said airily, “Really, the only thing you can do, if your lover or husband has been unfaithful is to pay him back in his own coin. Not out of wantonness or revenge, but to avoid worse: to avoid self-righteousness. For having done that, you could never be a martyr again, or wear a martyr’s hideous, aging face.”

“Unless,” Clarissa murmured, shaking out her needlework, “one enjoys martyrdom.”

Martyrdom! No, Sophie did not want that. She’d endured a lifetime of her mother’s cherished martyrdom, and so she listened with all her being. There was much more in the same vein, and then in an even more astonishing turn, when Diana and Clarissa (she could scarcely remain ‘Mrs. Oakes’ after that) talked about how to avoid babies. Sophie veered between intense interest and fear that God would strike her dead for such talk.

But God did not strike her dead, not then or the next day when, after she’d gone over the accounts (oh, the blessed silence, not having to defend every penny, though pennies were still scarce) she tiptoed into the blue parlor, and took down the great Bible in which was inscribed Jack’s family’s births, marriages, and deaths.

And there, just as Diana had said, she found the Psalms. Psalms? These were no more nor less than love poems, some of the words warming her to the toes as the long-ago Hebrew king wrote out exactly what he adored in his beloved.  It was as if some fairy had stolen into this room and inserted words into the Bible that had been hidden until now; so much of the old world seemed new again, but such was her uncertainty that she clapped the Bible shut, blushing furiously when Fanny ran precipitously into the room.

“Oh, Mama! I did not think to see you here!”

Charlotte erupted just behind her. “I’ll give you such a drubbing, you sodding—oh!” She caught herself up beside her sister, her surprise twin to Fanny’s. Then her brow lowered when she saw the Bible in her mother’s hands. “It’s not Deuteronomy 28 _again_? Grandmother Williams has given it to me so many times I’ve got it by heart.”

“What have you done?” Sophie asked unsteadily, caught midway between tears and laughter.

“It was only a bit of bobbery,” Fanny began defensively.

“Girls, please remember you are to set an example before George and Brigid,” Sophie said, distracted now, as she set the Bible back in its place.

The girls ran off, and Sophie followed more slowly, to encounter Diana in the passage.

 “Why do people bore on about the innocence of childhood,” Diana remarked as she plucked her hat off the peg; in the distance, doors slammed, and the quarreling turned to shrieks. “They are all savages. I am going for a drive. My bays, at least, show a semblance of civility. Sophie, that puts me in mind of something.  Mrs. Adeane is giving a ball at week’s end, in celebration of one of their royal highnesses’ birth days, or death days, or something. How many of them _are_ there? Do not answer that.”

A snap of the door, and she was gone, leaving Sophie thinking of Captain Adeane—otherwise known as Captain Apollo. Between the Bible and Diana and Captain Apollo and Amanda Smith, there seemed to be a conspiracy to prove that Sophie was no better than a wet hen.

There was nothing hennish about Sophie when the ladies set out for the ball later that week. Even the weather had cooperated, the earlier rain having gone off. Clarissa Oakes wore her crimson Java silk (after having asked Sophie if she would not mind, a piece of unlooked-for civility) and Sophie had graciously conceded, for she was wearing a daring gown of palest green watered silk, cut so low in the bosom her mother had scolded her into sewing a lace inset, though she was a married woman of many years. But Sophie had removed the inset, and freshened the lace at sleeves, neck, and hem. She tied a ribbon of emerald green at the high waist, and another threaded through her hair, alternating with a rope of pearls that Jack had bought for her after his first great prize somewhere in the seas off the Spanish coast.

Diana had once told her that men didn’t look at dresses so much as at the body inside the dress. At the time she had turned away in modest horror, thinking her cousin every bit as fast as Mama whispered, but now those words were back and so, when the three ladies were announced in the Adeanes’ ballroom, full of company and smelling of beeswax candles and claret cup, she lifted her chin and straightened her spine, conscious of the effect on her figure.

She knew she had standing in the country—she was Mrs. Aubrey of Woolcombe, but nothing could make her look about her as bold and brassy as Diana, across the room gurgling with laughter at a crowd of half-a-dozen rakish Army officers, splendid in their red coats and clattering swords and epaulettes.  But neither did she keep her gaze modestly lowered, and so she could see, and even revel in seeing, the lingering, appreciative gazes of her partners, and men who were not her partners, as she performed her figures in the dance.

Country-dances, reels, waltzes, even the quadrille, she danced every one, and could not help a flush of triumph when Captain Apollo, so very handsome with his curling brown hair and his scent of pomade watched her instead of the girls of eighteen and twenty giggling and flirting their fans almost under his nose.

Captain Apollo contrived to have the last waltz, and during it whispered a smiling invitation for luncheon, just the two of them, the very next day. “I well know about the Woolcombe rose garden,” he said. “You might like to enjoy my garden, which is quite private.”

Sophie just managed to stammer her thanks, and while she was still wondering if there was extra meaning to his words (of course there was) Padeen appeared with their wraps, and Harding with the carriage, and Diana took the reins to drive them back in the moonlight.

All the way back Sophie thought about how different the world seemed. Sometimes she had wondered if she were made differently than other women, or maybe it was those like Diana and Clarissa seemed made of moonbeams and magic, leaving all the drudgery of womanhood to the likes of Sophie, the reward of good behavior.

In the past Stephen had called Sophie _joy_ , and though she knew it for a convention, like _chérie_ from those with a pretense of French, she had often wondered why there wasn’t more joy in her life. But this night, she was alive with anticipation, her nerves singing, as they bowled along the starlit lane toward home. She felt, in short, like a girl again, coming home from her very first ball.

Daylight brought the glare of the sun and the truth of her life, in quarreling servants, shrieking children to be bundled into the schoolroom on time, and George casting up his accounts after gorging on green apples. The caterpillars had found the cabbages again, and Sophie blamed herself for her neglect of the garden—and through it all Brigid walked like a little ghost, her eyes round as an owl’s until Sophie took her aside. “What is amiss, Brigid? Are you not supposed to be in the schoolroom with Miss Hay and the girls?”

“I do not like her,” Brigid whispered. “I do not know her, and her lessons are strange. It is not what I am used to.”

“Miss Hay was once new to Fanny and Charlotte,” Sophie said kindly. “But now they have got accustomed to one another. And the lessons are those every other child must learn. There are new things in the world that we must learn, and Miss Hay is here to teach them.”

Brigid clung tightly to Sophie’s hand, so Sophie set aside her trowel and took the child into the library. They sat side by side at the great carved table, going through the beautiful hand-colored leaves in a Book of Hours that Stephen had brought back from one of his travels. Brigid’s solemn eyes took in the elaborate decorations, then nothing sufficed but she must get paper and charcoal to attempt the elusive patterns of her own.

It took so little to please the child—a glance and a word of praise—but Diana seemed incapable of that much, sleeping until half past ten, then dashing straight out to look over her breeding stock. When the girls were sent out for their morning airing, Brigid slipped out to join them, and now it was time to dress for that luncheon.

Sophie could not just leave, the way Diana did. The household must be watched over. Sophie felt constrained to tell Clarissa Oakes that she had a pressing engagement, if Clarissa was not going anywhere herself?

“I have no plans other than finishing that basket of mending, and then, as my reward, I might look through your grandfather’s first folio,” Clarissa said. She asked no questions about that engagement—seemed perfectly disinterested—but Sophie felt that Clarissa had the moral advantage, her plans were so transparent, as she trudged up to her room to change out of the old round gown she wore for morning labors.

It was in a punitive frame of mind that she looked at her wardrobe. There was no chance of washing out any of her light muslins, which could have lain in the sun all morning to dry, needing only pressing. Instead, she was left with the yellow gown which she was convinced made her look haggish, for was it not Diana who had said, all those years ago, that blondes must not wear yellow? Even that Mrs.—even Clarissa—never wore yellow, and no one could say that she took extra care to be anything but neatly turned out.

Of course Sophie could wear one of her silks, though those were for dinner, or evening engagements. But somehow it seemed right to put herself into the hated yellow dress. She brushed out her hair until her scalp smarted, and in a mood as uneven as the sunlight when a thunderstorm threatens, she went out to get Harding to put to the gig. She was already late; Colton was six miles away by country lanes.

Excuses streamed through her mind as the pony trotted along—she was half ready to turn about and drive home, except for the conviction that that would be even more rude, and what if it caused talk, if Captain Adeane sent someone to see if she might have had an accident on the road? How did people manage these things?

But when she arrived at Captain Adeane’s, he welcomed her himself. There was no butler with a penetrating look. Not even the flighty aunt was around, to stare and to ask questions.

Captain Adeane conducted Sophie through the familiar public rooms to the back, where she had never been. Here he’d had fitted out a charming sitting room with mullioned doors opening onto a garden. The doors stood wide, welcoming the sweet, fresh breezes, and the sound of bees bumbling lazily among the roses. The garden was secluded; there was no other window staring in, Sophie saw, as he conducted her to a satin couch next to a table with little cakes and sandwiches already laid out, and a jug of the claret cup that had been served at the ball the night previous.

Captain Adeane said nothing about the time, or being late; he offered her a cup, which she gulped at to give her courage. The charming room, the wind flushing through her veins, the handsome man whose gaze did seem to look right past the hideous gown to the flesh beneath—and who obviously approved of what he saw—everything conspired to prove just what Diana had said.

Sophie replied disjointedly to the easy talk, her fingers trembling. She tightened them on her cup. Captain Apollo interrupted an easy question about the Dorchester assemblies to inquire, “Have you a headache, Mrs. Aubrey? I think I see the signs.” He touched his own broad forehead, and again beside his large, long-lashed brown eyes.

“Oh yes. A little. It is nothing,” she managed.

“Will you permit me to attempt a little trickery I learnt when I was in India? They have some amazing people there, they call them gurus, who are ever so wise. Much more so than we are, to tell the truth, though we assure ourselves of our superior civilization.” Captain Adeane smiled. “It will not hurt, I promise. It is only a technique for smoothing the nerves of the head.”

Sophie assented—that sounded like no threat—and so he rose and gently took the cup from her hand, bade her lean back on the couch, with her head on a pillow, and her feet stretched out on the other cushion. She was to shut her eyes.

And it did feel good. His fingertips touched the skin around her forehead, and scalp, and around her eyes, pressing in a gentle circle in a way that sent tiny sparks of easement through her eyes, and behind her eye sockets, and even down into her jaw. And as the fingers moved in wider circles, the sparks were brighter, more insistent, shooting down her spine, and spreading outward in a way that felt like the first time she waltzed in Jack’s arms, and the first time he kissed her, ever so gently.

By the time the questing fingers had removed her hairpins to work over her scalp and then down the back of her head to her neck, and from her neck to her shoulders, the sparks pooled together into warmth, tingling in secret places.

She did not want him to stop, ever. It was so very  . . . very _peaceful_ , to sit here like this, without a care in the world, bathed by scented breezes, warm with wine, the headache well and truly gone, the clever fingers smoothing her flesh into ribbons of silk below the edge of the ugly yellow gown, until she drowsily discovered that the yellow gown had been loosened to expose her sensitive flesh to the air, and that the drowsiness had become a sweet urgency that she had never felt before.

 _This_ was what they all talked of, from Diana to that long-ago poet writing to his love in the Book of Psalms. She had not been shut out, or made a different way. This was the fire of passion.

She knew where it was about to go; she opened her eyes, and there was Captain Adeane’s handsome face. He had taken off his tight coat, and he sat beside her in his shirt sleeves, his chest rising and falling quickly beneath the fine lawn. Her gaze dropped—she could not help it—and there, too, was the unmistakable evidence of his equal passion, but he was not Jack. He was not Jack.

He lifted his hands. “Did I hurt you?” he asked, his brown eyes concerned.

“No.” She made a convulsive movement to close her gown; the sweet lassitude was dissolving as quickly as vapors before the sun. “No, you didn’t.”

Automatic words of accusation dried up on her tongue; she would not accuse him of being a rake, of leading her astray. She had come here, and she was no innocent maiden. She had come with full knowledge of what might happen; she had just not expected it to happen so quickly.

Or so sweetly.

The question came out unintended, causing her to blush hotly: “Why are you not married?”

His smile was quick, and rueful. “My older brother has seen to the succession. I am not capable of any kind of regularity; I love women too much to settle on one.”

“Love?” she repeated, thinking he should employ another word. But hard on that came Diana’s voice, saying that the same act could be sacred or dirty, not in the act itself, but how one viewed it.

“I love women,” Captain Adeane went on, smiling at Sophie, his gaze untroubled. “I love pleasuring them, and being pleasured. Old, young—though never virgins. I do have scruples.” He opened his hand in appeal. “Did I misread the signals, as we say in the military?”

 _Women_. _Pleasuring women, and being pleasured_. Had Diana lain on this couch? Sophie winced away from the thought, then forced herself back to it, with this new perspective. What did Sophie fear? That Captain Adeane might compare them, and find Diana preferable? What matter if he did? Sophie was not married to him, she owed him nothing. He owed her nothing.

Yet she could not recapture that glorious passion, the sense of flinging her cap over the windmill. Oh, was _that_ what the old saying meant? It was not the act of taking off one’s cap to toss, it was the motivation behind the action, this feeling, the loosening inside, the lack of care. The _joy_.

Captain Adeane reached for the cups, and offered Sophie hers as he took a sip from his own. Sophie cradled the cup in her fingers, then took another gulp.

 _There are new things in the world to learn_ , she had said to Brigid. _And Miss Hay is here to teach them_.

“You did not.” She set the cup aside. “I am misreading my own signals. I don’t understand my own signals.”

She looked up, but Captain Apollo did not frown, or express impatience. He seemed curious. Here was a man who lived for love, in all its degrees. Sophie did not have to experience all those degrees, but why not learn some?

“If one was to teach a husband,” she said slowly. “How would one go about it?”

Captain Apollo laughed. “Nothing easier,” he said.

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Grateful thanks to Kate Nepveu for beta reading!


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